Blasted with Pow in Bullion Basin

I must’ve been excited for this ski outing because I woke up at 4:30am thinking I had overslept my alarm. My dream that morning was comical. It involved a 4ft tall chicken leg, dessert for breakfast. And culminated with me being stranded high up on a peak somewhere in the Issaquah Alps with only 10 minutes until I was supposed to meet Boris, my skiing partner, in Bellevue. 

I woke with a start, but was luckily in my own bed with plenty of time to drive to Bellevue to meet Boris at the Bellevue park and ride at 6:15. We thought that would give us plenty of time to get to Crystal by our meeting time at 8:30. But Crystal Mountain Boulevard had other plans for us and would delay our arrive until 8:40.

Precipitation was 20% throughout the day, there were small snowflakes falling. I wore my neon bibs, which worked out pretty well with the spandex underneath. And for layers, I brought my R1 fleece and a skiing jacket. The gear was pretty good except the boots, which could have benefited from double socks and a little bit of blister tape around my left heel because I’m getting a little hotspot back there. 

We skinned up  the Bullion Basin approach trail up to Bullion Peak. We then skied a couple incredible laps in the bowl. The first run was down Big Daddy Chute and the second was further East down, Crown Point. The cloud started closing in at 2:30pm so we ascended to Crown Peak again and started to traverse over to Bullion Peak in order to descend via ACDC.  However, we just ended up skiing Ians Slide into Panhandle basin. Then we skinned up above Gld Hills and skied the in bounds back to the car. 

It was fantastic powder throughout the day, without any considerable avalanche danger. On the way up from our last run, there was a solo skier with his pup in town heading down into the basin. This was a big boost to our spirits, not like it was necessary anyways. 

Overall a great day. I even made it back into town for some poker at the Siren. Had an incredible near-death hand, but ended up losing discipline and busted with a &-2 off suit.